


the smile that you gave me even when you felt like dying

by SaintDracTheAlien



Series: click here for everything endgame didn't give you [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, I'll add more as I go, Post-Endgame, scarletvision - Freeform, you know how I do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2020-06-03 20:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19471813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaintDracTheAlien/pseuds/SaintDracTheAlien
Summary: Vision shouldn't be dead and I'm going to fix it.Or at least, Shuri is. If anyone can do it, it's her - that is, with a little bit of help from a few other field experts. After assembling a team of the people who knew him best (and a few people who didn't know him at all), Vision's return to the land of the living becomes the group project of the century. Some might say it's a task not worth undertaking, but Shuri doesn't have the luxury of doubt - she won't be able to sleep at night until she's shaken off this feeling of failure.This is a story about Wanda, too. You don't ever get used to the pain of grief, and you don't ever become an expert at moving past loss. Wanda Maximoff is no exception, and she's tired of feeling like a punching bag. Once she finds out there may be hope for the Vision's life, nothing can stop her from giving everything she's got to get him back, even if it eventually means taking an unimaginable risk - and possibly making the ultimate sacrifice.I'm angry! and depressed. you probably are too. if so, you're in the right place. Vision is getting resurrected in this story, that's the whole point of it all, but it's going to take a while and be very difficult. I hope you enjoy it.





	1. it's not true

**Author's Note:**

> yup! we're jumping right into it. this is still a work in progress so there might be edits in the future. if so, I'll leave a note about it here.
> 
> thank you for reading - you are why I write.

* * *

SHURI

* * *

Days after their last encounter with Thanos, Shuri had a disappointing and slightly awkward conversation with Bruce Banner. She had hoped that he could provide her with some information on what actions the Avengers and company had taken after the rest of the world was dusted - but the discussion didn’t exactly go as she had planned.

“There weren’t that many bodies to bury,” Banner had told her as they sat in the shade of a palace balcony. “Your soldiers took responsibility for their comrades, gave them services and buried them in your tradition. But I don’t know what they decided to do for the Vision.”

“But he must have been somehow moved off the battlefield, yes?” Shuri had followed, feeling her brow furrow in confusion. “No one just left him there?”

“Oh, no,” Banner had clarified, “We didn’t leave him there. Cap didn’t know what to do at first. I mean, the world had just ended and I don’t think any of us could really think straight. But eventually, Thor kind of snapped back into it, cleared his throat and said something about not having time to waste. He’s the one who brought Vision’s body back.”

“He carried his body?”

Bruce had nodded and tapped his recently Hulk-ified fingers lightly on his equally green knee before continuing, “He picked him up and carried him across the field, through the smoke and everything. Once he got to the city, your guys had a transport full of casualties, and the Vision ended up on one of them. But that was the last I ever saw of him.”

It was quiet between the two for a very long moment. Shuri had tried to imagine the way that day may have ended, as the carnage was cleared from the plain and the world began its long period of suffering. She hadn’t been unlucky enough to experience it firsthand, but dealing with the consequences now was proving to be difficult nonetheless.

“I don’t - god, I shouldn’t even say this,” Bruce suddenly began again, leaning over to rub at his eyes with the palm of one hand. “It’s not easy to admit, but I feel like you need to know.”

“What is it?” Shuri had pressed, eager for as much information as she could get.

“I don’t think...that Thor did what he did because he was feeling selfless.”

Another pause. “What do you mean, Banner?” the princess had asked.

Bruce had sighed, still exasperatedly kneading at his temples. “You’ve gotta understand, I didn’t know what to think of the Vision. I knew him for two days while Ultron was at large, and for less than two more when Thanos came knocking. All the time he spent on Earth, I spent miles away from it. I saw him into this world and then I watched him walk out of it, that’s all there ever was to it.”

Bruce finally stopped working his hands all over his face, and instead let his palms lay flat on his knees again before turning back to Shuri.

“I didn’t know him at all, I don’t think most of us really did. Thor was off-planet just as long as I was, and apparently while we were gone the whole team had some big divorce which resulted in the Vision being the sole permanent occupant of the compound. Most of the Avengers who might have known him well enough to pass an opinion are either dead, suddenly a senior citizen, or Wanda Maximoff.”

“Doctor Banner, I still don’t know where you’re going with this - ”

“I’m trying to say that I don’t think Thor actually gave that much of a damn about losing Vision,” Bruce had finally admitted, wincing slightly as he said it. “I don’t think even Tony did once he got back to Earth. If anyone still cared, it was probably Steve and Nat, and they only did it because of Wanda. I think Thor looked at his body and saw our failure at protecting the mind stone. We didn’t see him, we saw the thing that Thanos had just used to kill everyone.”

The setting sun wasn’t particularly harsh that afternoon, but Shuri had still felt her eyes sting quickly. She had tried so hard to save Vision, she had done everything correctly and quickly - but she had run out of time. In the end, she’d lost her fight just as much as anyone else had. And now Banner was saying that, despite her best efforts to save that man’s life - none of the Avengers could even look at his body and see the life which had been lost? That all they could see was the stone she failed to recover, not the person they’d asked her to preserve?

“Why are you telling me this?” Shuri had asked through a stiff jaw, not concerned about concealing the bitter tone in her words.

“Because I don’t know how much help anyone else is going to be able to offer you,” Bruce had answered. “Because Tony and I, we should’ve pooled our resources and gotten him up and running again a long time ago. But we didn’t, and now Tony is gone, and you can’t even get started until you’ve finished this wild goose chase for his remains.”

“You’re…” Shuri had begun in reply, “you’re sorry for making this harder than it should be?”

Banner had looked away from Shuri again, focusing back on the declining sunset. “I’m glad that you’re trying to give him a chance, and that you want to help Wanda. But I’m trying to give you a heads-up, too. I’ll do what I can to help with the repairs to his software, maybe even circuitry - but I’m probably the only Avenger who can offer you anything at this point.”

Another long stretch of uncomfortable silence sat between the two for several minutes, as Bruce sat in regret and Shuri tried to decide how best to respond. She was angry with the Avengers, for their ignorance regarding both her own efforts and the Vision’s life. She had been shocked to find out that his body was missing, but even more so now that she felt like it wasn’t because of a mistake or bad luck. It was out of disregard, a complete lack of care.

Shuri had eventually stood up and turned to face Bruce Banner, feeling like she’d finally found the right words to end the conversation:

“If I were you, I wouldn’t so much as breathe a word of this to Wanda Maximoff.”

Bruce’s eyes had widened, and he nodded slowly in agreement, still staring at the horizon all the while.

“And I’ll be calling you if I need your assistance,” Shuri had continued, “But until then, I need you to get me contact information for Helen Cho and Stephen Strange. Cho may have the tech I need to reconstruct his body, and Strange is the only one I can think of who might know the Infinity Stones well enough to help me design a replacement.”

Bruce had nodded again. “There’s a few numbers I can give you to try,” he replied without much hesitation. “But depending on how long it takes you to track the body down - ”

“Doctor, you have already made your thoughts on this subject very clear,” Shuri had interrupted, taking a few slow steps in the direction of the door. “But now I need you to pretend like the glass is half full. I am quite possibly the only person in the world with the resources needed to bring back the Vision. So even if the original Avengers cannot help me, I have a job to do regardless - and I am determined to do it.”

And then Shuri had left him sitting on the balcony, her shadow growing long in the light of dusk, before entering back into the palace with a new sense of resolve.

It may have been a daunting task, but she truly was the Vision’s last hope for a second chance at life - and Shuri was certainly not the type to back down from a challenge, no matter how great.


	2. tell me I've been lied to

Since the final battle against Thanos and his army almost two months ago, Wakanda had gotten back on its feet and all pre-Decimation order had been mostly restored. Shuri took the opportunity as a chance to finally re-open her lab and resume her work. Assistants and techs had returned to their daily routines and kept each station busy - equipment needed updates and repairs, new designs needed to be constructed, and there were plenty of simulations and test sequences to be run before anything else. 

There was, admittedly, an impressive amount of work to be done - but Shuri would just have to trust her faithful team to do it on their own.

At the moment, she was dealing with someone who still needed a little convincing that her personal project was worth pursuing - or at least, that’s how it sounded.

“No,” T’Challa was arguing with her, “I’m not trying to discourage you from this.”

“I’m not convinced,” Shuri huffed back at her brother, still not focusing completely on the conversation. She was preoccupied with the sand table in front of her, flicking her wrist to swipe through the seemingly endless pages of holograms she still needed to search.

She began tapping one foot incessantly as T’Challa explained himself further. “I don’t have any reason to keep the Vision buried,” he told her, “and I definitely don’t have an argument against your abilities.”

“Then why are you being so negative?” Shuri asked, watching another flickering hologram before swiping again. She squinted and peered at the next image, her eyes flickering from side to side, up and down, over and over again as she searched. There had to be something that she was missing, somewhere that had been skipped or missed by accident during her first few scans...

A full diorama of the palace and its surrounding structures was being projected piece-by-piece in front of her, laying out the location of every room on royal property, from the vast throne room all the way down to the smallest linen closet. Thanks to her updated vibranium-sensing technology, the hologram was the most accurate blueprint currently available - anything that was composed of at least fifty percent vibranium appeared on the monitor in its exact shape and size.

It had taken several hours for the model to update itself, since no one had used it - or any of her personal technology - for more than five years.

“Because after weeks of throwing yourself into this, we still can’t find his body,” T’Challa continued, “Even with our resources - which, because of you, are the best on the planet. You must consider another option soon.”

Shuri flicked her wrist once again, only to find that she’d reached the last page of the diagram. She refreshed the server with just a twist of one of her kimoyo beads, sighing as each blue pixel disintegrated and began rising again from the ground up.

“What option do you think I should pursue then, Your Majesty?”

“Don’t be like that, Shuri.”

“I’m serious! What should I do instead? Cho’s office is still closed, Strange has taken my commission and disappeared, and Wanda - ”

Shuri suddenly paused before turning around to face her brother. “Wait. Is this because of her?”

T’Challa rolled his eyes vaguely. “I wouldn’t have told her she was welcome here if she wasn’t.”

“Not personally, but...I don’t know,” Shuri trailed off, “I didn’t know if you were on good terms.”

“Honestly, I don’t know much about her.”

“Yeah? No one seems to.”

Slowly, T’Challa walked towards the sandtable, each step practically silent. “I know that she’s suffered.”

Shuri nodded, thinking back on the afternoon when she’d decided to learn more about the woman they called the Scarlet Witch. It didn’t take much digging for her to find plenty of heartbreaking information about Wanda Maximoff.

“She was orphaned at ten,” Shuri began listing off each terrible thing she had discovered that day, “Became a human experiment for Hydra, lost her twin brother in Novi Grad, has lived in hiding since the split with the Avengers, and has no one left in the entire world now that the Vision is gone.”

One of Shuri’s kimoyo beads flashed suddenly, indicating that the sandtable had loaded the new projection. She turned to see the full-view model of the entire property, colour coded based on vibranium levels and three-dimensional to make things simpler. Shuri scanned the blueprint over and over again, knowing that something must have been escaping her eye, that there must be some cranny, some corner, some crevice left unchecked.

“I know you’re up to this task,” T’Challa reassured his distracted sister. “If anyone can make this happen, it’s you. And it should be you.”

“But?” Shuri questioned, and she heard a sigh before he continued -

“But it may be time to accept that he isn’t in the palace,” T’Challa advised. “He may not be in Wakanda at all. If he was - I think we would have found him by now.”

“But I can’t scan the whole planet, as convenient as that may be.” Shuri hated ruling out the possibility, but it really would be impossible to search the entire haystack for a vibranium needle. “I have to look based on what I know, and all I know is that there’s no proof his body ever left.”

“Not yet, no,” T’Challa agreed, “but I think we should talk to someone with access to more helpful information than what you have now.”

“Do you have someone in mind?” Shuri asked, tearing her gaze away from the hologram once again.

“As a matter of fact, I think I might.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been almost a year since I wrote anything new for this story, but now I'm coming back to it with a complete outline - that means no plot holes, no unanswered questions, and no planning is left for me to fix, answer, or complete. my story is finally as interesting, plausible, and wide-spread as I want it to be. it's just writing now! as usual, thanks for reading :)


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